Embodiments discussed herein relate to a method and an apparatus for grouping individual piece goods on a packing table. Grouping operations of this type take place at the end of industrial production lines, in order to package the goods which are manufactured in said production lines into larger containers. Here, the goods are often fed one after another in a serial stream to a first collecting zone, where they are backed up to form individual groups with in each case a defined number of goods. When the group is complete, it is advanced out of the first collecting zone laterally or at a right angle with respect thereto by a fixed amount, in order to make space for building up a new group. The displaced group for its part is then picked up manually and packed, for example, into a box or another packaging. All the goods of the group can expediently be picked up jointly and packed into the packaging, it being possible, for example, for six or 24 groups to be packed depending on the size of the packaging, before the packaging can be closed and sent for dispatch.
This method has the disadvantage that the production has to be slowed down or even stopped if the group which is pushed laterally out of the first collecting zone has not been removed and inserted into the packaging at the latest when the next group has been formed completely in the first collecting zone. Within a relatively short cycle time, the group which is pushed out of the first collecting zone therefore has to be received rapidly, and the operator is bound tightly to the production cycle.